Hands of Stone - Christian Giudice [171]
“The poor people from where he comes from, they don’t care that they abused Duran,” said Panamanian boxing personality Daniel Alonso. “They interpret it as the possibility of having something of all that Duran has earned, someone from their own family. To me, Duran has one of the noblest hearts. He always trying to go out and help people. When you put everything he’s done in a balance, the satisfactions that Duran gave us against his bankruptcy, mistakes, failures, the result is very favorable for Duran.”
A common theory that some hold as absolute truth is that Eleta skimmed a lot of money from his fighter. After I interviewed Eleta for this book, several individuals sent warnings of his motives. With white, receding hair, and a stylish dress shirt, Eleta, eighty-six, came across as a classy gentleman who didn’t let age stop him from continuing to work. Yet he kept retelling the same stories, as if he were convincing himself of his innocence during Duran’s career. “I want this to be known. I tried to preserve his money,” he said. “They say that Eleta is stealing Duran’s money. Duran believed everything that the people told him. I wanted to save his money. The people here are against anybody who makes money. They are not hypocrites but are envious.”
Although Eleta seemed to care more about his own image than Duran’s ultimate fate, he has an insight into the man that few people have. With the autograph signings dwindling and the flow of money having stopped, there was a ubiquitous feeling in Panama that Duran would end up right where he started. “I was in a restaurant and he came and embraced me,” said Eleta in 2004. “He said, ‘I know that you are mad with me. I will not talk bad about you anymore.’ I said, ‘It’s about time.’ Some people have lost respect for him but they pardon him. They know that he is crazy and he talks too much. What he says, they don’t pay any attention to. But they know what he did for Panama.
“He will end with nothing; he will end up worse than that. He tells me that he will come to my office but he will not ask me for money. I will help him in my way when he has nothing left. I don’t know if it will have a sad ending. I don’t know how sad. I know that he’ll never lack to eat or to sleep because I’ll be after him.”
DURAN’S FAMILY finds it easier to look back to happier times than face the present. The beer flowed at parties; women were everywhere; cash was abundant and everyone dipped into the money pot for any need or want – some more than others. Now, for most of the extended Duran family the gleam of the glory days has turned to rust.
A man once told Clara Samaniego, “There has not been another woman here in Panama that has given birth to a man like Roberto Duran.” From almost since he was old enough to walk, she relied on her son. Now La Casa de Piedra is a memory, replaced by a crumbling apartment building. Chorrillo is a dark place, an epicenter of drugs and crime, and there is no sign that Duran ever lived there. A vast army of unemployed wander the streets. Scarred children with sunken eyes hang out of broken windows draped with washing, staring down on empty futures. It will perhaps never be as dangerous as the appalling Colon, but violent death is a constant threat.
During his adolescence, Duran often turned to his stepfather Victorino Vargas for advice. However, by the time Duran had reached his mid-twenties, Vargas and his mother had split. Today it is only possible to reach Vargas’s home in Guarare Alto by traveling along several winding dirt roads. There he sits on his porch, cornered by filth. A flattened barbed wire fence lies on the ground, almost inviting one of the several small children running around the yard to step on it. Neglect is a feature of his home. Broken glass substitutes for a window. Clothes are scattered around the yard.
Victor was once slim and powerful; now his full belly rests on his thighs. He has trouble remembering all his five children’s names, and he no longer speaks with Clara or any of her offspring. When he asks an interviewer to tape